May Porter
May Violet Porter (nee. Barlow) (b. 11th July 1930) has been a resident of North Grove her whole life. She is the daughter of the late Frank and Elsie Barlow, she has been widowed twice over with Brian Porter (d. 1968) and Roger Hackman (d. 2010) and has five children and one step-child: Helen (1954), Pauline (1957), Denise (1960), Frances (1963), Jack (1966) and John (1964). She also has twenty grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. Childhood May was born in her mother’s front room in 1930. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was a doctor. The family were well off and even welcomed another little girl Rose in 1933, however tragedy struck when she died of a cot death two months after she was born. In 1939, war broke out and May’s father was sent away to France. Her mother went to work in the factories to earn a wage to keep the two of them going. It was in 1942 when her father was sent home, his infantry was bombed but he managed to survive. However, he was left paralysed and was never able to walk again. The burden was hard on the family and May’s mother wanted her to marry well so that she would be able to support her parents and also so she would never end up in a state of poverty like they we Teenage Years May’s mother Elsie tried to push May into a courtship with Edgar Justice who was in his last year of Law School and already had a job set up for as soon as he graduated. May did not want to upset her family but she did not like him at all. He was swarmy and his parents were a little pushy, trying to get their son married to the old Doctor’s daughter and never actually tried to get to know her above the usual pleasantries. Another reason as to why she did not want to marry Edgar was because she was secretly dating Brian Porter. He was her age and he lived two streets down. His parents enjoyed her company and she enjoyed hanging around their house. In 1948, May told her parents about Brian for the first time and her mother was angry. Brian was training to be a teacher, but Elsie had her daughter matched to Edgar and did not want her to marry anyone else. This caused tension in the household as May continued to defy her parents wishes by dating Brian. When Edgar moved away from North Grove, May was relieved but her parents were not and they kicked her out of the house. Brian’s mother and father let her stay with them but she was only allowed to stay for two weeks as they thought she would have made up with her parents by that point. However, after the two weeks were up, she had not and so she moved in with a friend. Bouncing between houses for a few months became extremely tiring on May’s body and so she started to think about moving away to start a new life when Brian announced that he had scored a job as a teacher at the local high school. Early Adult Years May was relieved but also felt guilty because his and her own family did not approve of the marriage. Her parents were resentful and his parents did not think she was good enough for him. With all of this pressure coming from both sides, May fell into a depression. However, nobody took her seriously and just told her ‘buckle up’. Brian tried to get her a job as a secretary at the school but she failed the interview and Brian was not happy with her. In 1950, things had become worse. She was living with Brian in their own house but she did not feel much better and when she became pregnant she panicked. They were still not married as their families refused to turn up and Brian wanted them all there so was stalling and May did not want to tell him. She felt ashamed at what had happened and so when Brian went to work she hit the bottle and after a few weeks of excessive drinking, she collapsed and had a miscarriage. Brian discovered her on the kitchen floor when he came home and drove her to the hospital. There, Brian found out what had happened and felt mortified. The doctor’s wanted to send May to a Mental Institute but he refused and took her back home once she was physically better. The miscarriage remained a secret between Brian and May and they never told another soul. They did though, tell her parents about May being hospitalised and after they had already lost one daughter, they overcame their differences and started to become a part of her life again. May’s collapse had opened her eyes and she started to feel better in herself. She got herself a job as a secretary at the hospital and became good friends with Abigail Groom. Marriage to Brian Porter With things starting to work out, Brian and May married in the Baptist church in 1951. The two were overjoyed at finally being able to start their lives. Things started out peaceful at first, they were newlyweds who were in love and had the world at their feet. With some money that they had saved up, they went on the ferry to Ireland for a week and visited some of Brian’s cousins. Dougall, Brian’s younger cousin came to stay with them for a few weeks but when he refused to move they let him stay if he gave board which seemed to work out well for a few years. However, in Spring 1954, May found out she was pregnant again and they needed the spare bedroom for the newborn and so they were forced to kick Dougall out - which he was not happy about. He caused a lot of problems which all led to a fight in the pub between the cousins. May was horrified when Dougall pulled a knife on Brian but Jim Groom stepped in and managed to dispel any real threat before it happened. Dougall was arrested and through the stress, May went into early labour. May was meant to give birth in November but it was only September. She was scared half to death, especially when the baby was so small. The baby however, pulled through. It was a miracle but the baby girl did. Children After Helen was born, everything seemed to go right. May embraced motherhood and her and Brian loved Helen. Brian and May welcomed four more children after Helen: Pauline born in 1957, Denise born in 1960, Frances born in 1963 and Jack in 1966. After four girls, Brian was ecstatic at having a boy. He was always there for his children but he was more so for Jack. Every time Jack cried, Brian was there and May loved to see it. As their first house was only a two-bedroomed house, they had to move into a larger house in 1961 which put a bit of strain on their financial situation. It was a four-bedroomed house in the ‘posh’ side of the town. The houses were newly built in 1960 so when they were ready, May, Brian and their brood were one of the first families in them. Brian's Death For 7 years the family enjoyed living in their new home. They lived happily off Brian’s teaching wage which even though it was not a lot it was enough to get everything they needed. May even started back at her job at the hospital in January 1968 and her parents and Brian’s parents started babysitting Jack and Frances while the rest of the children went to school. May was starting to relax after the past hectic few years and enjoyed the peace. It was not to last though. In August 1968, Brian contracted an infection. At first they both thought it was a bit of a cough and ignored it. This ‘cold’ became considerably worse and by early September, Brian was bed-ridden. The school was thinking about sacking him as he had not turned up in five days so to keep a roof over his family’s head he was forced to go in. On 16th September, Brian collapsed at work and was taken straight to hospital where it was revealed that he had contracted pneumonia. Over the night he started to have shaking and coughing fits that culminated in his death in the early hours of the morning on 17th September 1968 with only May at his side. May was inconsolable. She did not know what to do. She knew that she could not keep herself and five children afloat on her pittance of a wage so she had to turn to family. This shamed her because she never wanted to ask them for anything more than babysitting the kids ever. Even though they had said their peace, May still felt the sting when her parents and Brian’s parents refused to acknowledge her and Brian so she had to think of her children when asking them for a place to stay. Brian’s younger brother Neil and his wife Betty helped as well but they were limited as they also had three young children so May had to separate her children between family with Helen and Pauline living with Brian’s parents, Denise and Frances living with Neil and Betty and herself and Jack with her parents. 1970's May and her family continued to live with family until 1970 when Helen, who had been working for a year and May’s wage they were able to afford a small two-bedroomed house in the area where May and Brian first set up. Things became easier when Jack started school and May was able to pick more hours up at the hospital and Helen started her training to become a nurse. Even though it was hard the family started to finally see a way forward after Brian’s death and May started to rally her family together to get towards a common goal of just getting food on the table every week and clothes on their backs. In 1973, Helen began dating Arthur Jessop who she went to school with and the two seemed in love but in 1974, it was revealed in the streets that Arthur had been sleeping with Helen’s younger sister Pauline. May was horrified and kicked Pauline out of the house because she knew that Helen would kill her. Pauline lived with Brian’s parents during the rift and although May loved her second daughter she still felt disgusted at what she did to her sister. Helen soon met Peter Jones who was training to be a doctor at the hospital and in 1976 they married. In 1978, the couple had May’s first grandchild Sean. May and Helen forgave Pauline, especially when it came to be known that Pauline and Arthur were in love. Second Marriage By 1980, Helen and Pauline had moved out and Denise was rarely in as she and her friends went travelling for a few months to different parts of the UK and Europe. It was quiet and May finally had time to breathe and think of herself for the first time in decades. She was fifty years old but she loved the thrill of being able to enjoy herself down the pub. It was while she was in the pub that she caught the eye of Roger Hackman. She never expected to fall in love with anybody but Brian but she did with Roger. He was a widower with a child so he could relate to her and the two sort of came to an understanding that they did not want to live alone anymore so they married after only knowing each other for a few months in 1980. It was after the wedding that May found out that Roger was a millionaire who owned a huge soap company: Oxford Street Soaps which was one of the largest in the UK. May was shocked and felt overwhelmed when he moved herself, Denise, Frances and Jack into his large house just on the outskirts of town. Although May embraced her new life well, she never changed who she was. She left her job at the hospital but apart from that she kept everything as the same as she possibly could. Roger also had a son: John who was born in 1964. His mother had died in childbirth so he had never had a mother before and so May took him under her wing and started to nurture him even though he was 16 years old. She started to see him as her own and treated him like it. All of her children accepted him as a brother and also accepted their new life. Well, all of them did apart from Jack. He struggled at first because although he did not remember much of his father, he had heard lots of wonderful stories and did not like that his mother was replacing him. It took a few months for him to settle in at home with Roger there but he did and he became close to John. Grandchildren The birth of Sean was like a breath of fresh air to May. It was another four years before a second grandchild came along in the form of Olivia Jones, Helen and Peter’s second child. In 1981, Frances found love with high school sweetheart Charles Groom. May had been good friends with Abigail Groom for years since they both worked at the hospital but when Charles and Frances announced they were to marry at the age of eighteen May and Roger welcomed the announcement whereas Abigail and her husband Jim Groom were against it. This ruined their friendship for a number of years despite Abigail turning up to the wedding at the last minute. Denise also came back with a new boyfriend: Harold Weston. The two of them were in a huge group of friends who went travelling down to music festivals around Europe and the south of England. May was loving that her family were starting to branch out with their respective families. Between her five children and John she and Roger had twenty grandchildren and as of 2015 have twelve great-grandchildren and one more on the way. Roger's Death With everything she has overcome, from the miscarriage to Brian’s death and her depression to her children fighting, May has become known to North Grove as someone who takes no nonsense. She loves her ever growing family to pieces and continually surrounds herself around them. More so after Roger’s death. In 2010, Roger was out on a walk by the canal when he suffered a heart attack. After thirty years of marriage, Roger died. Being a second time widower did not make the loss feel any better. She moved into daughter Helen’s house but still suffered pangs of loss. She was stronger than she was in 1968 but it was still a lot for her to handle. By 2014, she has started to embrace life alone. She knows that she will never find love again but being 84 years old she has given up and is just concentrating on being there for her large family. Family Mother: Elsie Barlow Father: Frank Barlow Sister: Rose Barlow Husband: Brian Porter (1951 - 1968) Roger Hackman (1980 - 2010) Children: Helen Jones, Pauline Jessop, Denise Burrows, Frances Groom, Jack Porter, John Hackman (step) Brother-In-Law: Neil Porter Nieces: Charlotte Dane and Linda Etheridge Nephew: Alastair Porter Grandchildren: Sean Jones, Olivia Jones, Jenny Watson, Hannah Jones, Annie Buckley, Oscar Weston, Katie Jones, George Weston, Bailey Groom, Louisa Jones, Lois Jessop, Molly Groom, Tim Jessop, Luke Porter, Dennis Hackman, Lewis Jones, Rhys Porter, Georgie Jones, Shannon Porter and Isla Burrows Great-Grandchildren: Lola Jones, Cameron Jones, Amber Jones, Ethan Jones, Lottie-May Wright, Mason Byrne Jane Groom, Chace Richardson, Nadine Watson, Ashton Watson, Gabriel Watson, Freddie Weston and Kayla Buckley